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Housing History Day, 24th October 2016

On the 24th October 2016, Tower Block UK hosted a Housing History Day, based at Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh. The day was intended to introduce members of the public to ways in which they could research the history of postwar housing in their area, and the resources available to them, as well as to give a wider historical context to postwar residential architecture. Attendees met at 10am at the offices of HES and were given an introduction to researching postwar housing by architectural historian Diane Watters, before having the opportunity to browse the extensive collections in the HES archive themselves (including plans, minutes, sketches and letters).

After a free lunch at HES, the group were taken to Wester Hailes, where they were given an introduction to the archive of the community newspaper the Sentinel by Caroline Richards of Prospect Housing. The Sentinel ran in the 1980s and 1990s, at the time when Wester Hailes' high rise housing was being heavily criticised for its poor living conditions, and the archive of the paper is now held at Prospect Housing's Wester Hailes offices. After Caroline had presented the archive and given a talk, the group were taken on a social history walk of Wester Hailes by resident and co-founder of the 'Our Place in Time' local history initaitve, Eoghan Howard.

Cumbernauld exhibition and social history walks, 24th September 2016

Multi-storey housing in Cumbernauld has long defined its skyline. Indeed, tower blocks were originally planned by the Cumbernauld Development Corporation as visual markers, to add to the 'Italian hill town' aesthetic which they had intended. 2016 saw the evacuation and demolition of several of these blocks, with 2017 promising the disappearance of the town's remaining high rise housing. On the 24th September 2016, Tower Block UK ran an exhibition to commemorate the disappearance of the tower blocks such as Stuart House, and to remember Cumbernauld's place in the history of postwar architecture more generally. The exhibiton was held in the newly-opened Cumbernauld Community Enterprise Centre, and drew 133 visitors over the course of one afternoon (despite typically Cumbernauldian weather conditions!). As well as 12 specially designed and written exhibition boards, the Scotland's Urban Past team were also collecting and scanning in local people's photos of the town, to add them to Canmore, Historic Environment Scotland's official record of the built environment. This resulted in residents sharing stories, memories and photos, both with the team and with each other.

In addition to the exhibition, Cumbernauld resident Jean O'Reilly braved the rain and ran two social history walks of the town, leaving from and returning to the exhibition site. These took in the tower blocks, as well as Cumbernauld's other notable architecture such as the town centre megastructure and some of Cumbernauld's earliest low-rise housing in Seafar. The Tower Block UK team are currently working with Jean to develop her social history walks in to pamphlets, which would allow visitors to take the walk on their own, with all the information from Jean's walk in print.

RTPI talk and demonstration, Aberdeen, 1st June 2016

As part of the Festival of Architecture in June 2016, the Tower Block UK team travelled to Aberdeen to give a talk and working database demonstration to the Royal Town Planning Institute, Grampian Chapter (covering the Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray council area). Professor Miles Glendinning (Project Convenor) gave a 45 minute talk on postwar multi-storey housing in a global context, and the ways in which mass housing has developed differently across the world. As the database was nearing completion, Elin Jones (Research and Public Engagement Assistant) was able to conduct a live demonstration, showing attendees how the database worked and how it could be used as part of research in to mass housing more widely. Elin also gave a talk about multi-storey housing as a UK-wide vanishing heritage, and the ways in which heritage and conservation professionals might tackle buildings which have such polarised feeling about them.